


a flash in the sky

by stellatiate



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-04
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-01-07 11:32:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1119330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellatiate/pseuds/stellatiate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/71501">Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so. After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, we ourselves flash and yearn</a>." On the dock, she sees the wide brim of a hat with a veil sewed around it. On the dock, she sees an extravagantly detailed wooden boat.</p><p> </p><p>-—katara & zuko, others. post-canon, the painted lady/the blue spirit mythology.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. a nameless sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SongofHopeandHonor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SongofHopeandHonor/gifts).



> this is **part one** of christmas fiction, part four: for **shannon**. it is way past christmas and i was holding onto this for you but it's getting to be a little late.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> all of the legends start on the day that he died and the moment she swore to find him in a nameless sea.

…

 **i. she doesn’t believe in miracles  
** but watch the stars come out

…

This is the first night he hunkers down along the jagged shoreline, feet swinging over the star-reflected river, and she feels the cracks of invaded intimacy at his presence here, because she twines with the river each night, soaked to her spirit in the rippling, ink-splashed darkness of the water. She knows each constellation that is reflected in the current, each trickling tributary that runs shallow between homes.

She always comes to lay alms in the water and watch the leaves eddy down the stream in silence, but she is not alone, so she cannot. Instead, she watches _him_ , clear eyes ticking over the rise and fall of his chest, the incessantly anxious twiddle of his thumbs.

He is foreign, an intrusion in the cycle of nights, and something cold burns at the tips of her fingers as she listens to the heavy sigh that drags his skeleton down into a broken huddle against the dock. And before she can embrace chilled thoughts of frightening him away, he is a white-blind silhouette under the moonlight, traipsing away.

It is these moments that she remembers: _I had a life before this, before I met_ him.

…

She counts the days it takes for the half-moon to curve itself crescent and on the following day, he returns. It is by no stroke of luck that she pokes her fingers between the splintered cracks of the dock and glances through at him. He is a willowy figure with night-black fringes of hair sweeping back to a tail at the nape of his neck, he is storm cloud grey eyes that cannot settle still, and he is holding something between large worn palms.

The water swallows her shoulders and crests against her chin as she floats, steady ripples pouring out from her body. He falls down overhead into a sitting position and she barely hears the murmuring sound of his voice, a smooth silk being pulled through water, and strains to understand his words.

“…and I will finish by morning.”

Something scrapes, drags, flicks into the water not far from her and she wouldn’t dare to move into his sight when she does not want to be seen, but her eyes narrow on the curdle that floats towards her with gentle movements, the sway of the river.

It bumps against her fingers just as another scrapes and flicks into the water and from above her, she can hear the prolonged dragging noise. Her fingers close around a sliver, a curl of wooded bark, and she lets it bite underneath her nails longer than she should before she releases it.

She spends the night beneath the wood carver, floating in a sea freckled with stars and splinters.

…

She knows the space of two weeks’ time because she counts the changes in the cycle of the moon and measures them with days. But tonight she sits on the dock wrapped in a royal wisteria dress with the hems soaked in the edge of the water, bare feet tiptoeing across the surface. She has cried with the burden of one thousand tears and she is tired, in all ways there are to be.

“I didn’t know other people came here,” a voice slips between her thoughts and stirs her, because she turns her head and tilts it up to look at him. His jaw is a bristle of dark stubble and his eyes are as prickly, as guarded as she senses. He stands with his feet shoulder width apart, gives every read of _unapproachable_ that she can imagine. But there is still something about a wild tearstained woman in a beautiful dress in the middle of the night that keeps him from whipping out lashes of hesitance at her.

“I am always here,” she says in a thick tone and turns her head again to stare at the bare blackness of the sky.

There is a sharp point to his voice. “I have been alone every time I’ve been here.”

“I,” she counters with her nails digging into the rotted wood of the dock, “am _always_ here.”

Silence leeches into the air and she smears her cheeks clean from any sign of distress. Her hair tangles in a bun atop her head and loose curls tickle the back of her neck, keeping her mind off of the steady burn of cloud-grey eyes needling into her. She knows nothing of this wood carver and wishes to know nothing, but he lingers paces away from her.

His steps are heavy and his body is heavier at her side, a constant, radiant heat blending between the tangential lines of their skin at all the points that they touch; their shoulders brush together and his thigh flattens against hers and he cradles a wooden block in his hands, a knife pinched between his thumb and index. His eyes fall to the side of her face but there is too much for her to articulate and not nearly enough air in her lungs to scream it out.

She watches him flick the curls of wood shavings into the water and dries her eyes completely.

…

He comes back the next day.

She isn’t surprised. (She was waiting for him, after all.)

He sits down beside her at the edge of the dock with a mottled carving in his hands and she wrings her fingers into the rough texture of her usual dress. She had been elegant last night, she had brought part of her own life down to the river for the first time, and she wanted to believe it had changed everything right down to her companion.

But she knows she is ordinary and she rubs the coarse fabric between her fingers as a reminder. “What are you carving?” She mutes her thoughts by watching the slivers of wood peel from the surface. It didn’t look like much, but her serenity was now tangled around curiosity, and the only way she could sate it was with these questions.

His eyes are still pools of water with reflections of rainclouds inside of them because she gets lost in them with alarming ease, clear and grey. “It’s a toy boat.” He wedges his thumb against the back of the knife in his hand and carefully strips away a section of wood. “For my sister’s son.”

It is the first and last question she will offer him. This is her nightly solace and underneath the oblivion-black sky, there is no moon to ripple luminescence over the water. Each star looks so deep set into the sky that the only lights glow from outside houses by the water.

She lets her eyes crest and roll along the horizon of the water, tracing each tiny wave that curls against the rocks, and it drags on for what feels like hours.

“Are you going to tell me your name?”

Negativity flows to the brim of her lips and rests in the shape of her face as she whips her head to the side. Her eyes lock onto his face, her brows draw in lines of disbelief, and it holds for one, two, three.

“I just thought…nevermind.”

She stares hard into the side of his face even when he resumes his carving. “Why should I tell you my name?”

His fingers freeze over his block of wood and she twists her fingers into knots in her hair.

“I—I’ll probably be out here a lot more often from now on. And…and you said you’re _always_ here.”

Her mind shifts over several thoughts in the space of seconds before she answers. “A terrible reason,” she punctuates offhandedly, “but you can call me _Tlaloc_.” She clicks the syllables meticulously over her tongue and between her teeth, and it is he who stares into the side of her face now.

“Like the Fourth Sun.”

“Like he who brought eternal rain to the world.”

It is her favorite story, the one of the Five Suns, but especially the Fourth. Maybe it is something deep within her that wishes to curve cleansing hands around the world and wipe it clean, break open the clouds and spill rain across the landmasses.

Something connects in his mind because his eyes change; they darken, fill in with an even spread of emotions, but a smile narrows his eyes and rounds the rise of his cheeks.

“What terrible luck.” She meets his gaze for seconds, revels in the sudden depth and intensity of his eyes before he speaks again. “For a rain goddess to befriend a wood carver’s son.”

…

 **ii. love like wading in the water deep  
** and love is like you’re drowning me

…

Her mother’s fingers rattle like bones through her hair. “You’re _beautiful_ ,” she says in that toxic-heavy way she does when her words wish to carry manipulative weight, “any man would be a fool not to fall in love with you, flower blossom.”

It isn’t her fault she pictures him, smiling so brightly that the moon glows on his lashes, whittling with soft fingers and careful slices.

She does _not_ want to marry into gilded manacles; the last thing she wants is to be a trophy-prism wife. “Of course, mother.”

There are knots of curls in her hair and slicks of red over her eyes, and she feels as though she could kiss blood off of her lips. Her mother traded vases and coins for this dress, a deep-sky violet that makes her skin luminescent bronze. She should feel beautiful, but instead she feels restless.

“Smile.” Her mother rubs bitter fingers over her teeth, picking away at miniscule freckles of paint before prodding her thumbs against her cheeks. “The river water makes your skin so sallow.”

To her, it makes her feel _alive_ , but she knows her mother wouldn’t want that.

“The governor and his son will be here soon, flower blossom.” Her eyes are narrow and cold, but her voice betrays them by oozing plastic-fake sweetness. “Don’t wander far.”

She briefly entertains the idea of going down to the docks but the absence of presence keeps her rooted to her room. Maybe she can allow her mother to dress her and make her up, dark brown china doll, if she can wipe herself clean down by the river at night.

…

“We are _not_ friends, okay?”

Heat floods her cheeks and she feels the rip, tear of his nails inside her wrist. It burns as the blood clings to her skin, swells out of bloody furrows.

“You’re _crying_ ,” he insists as if it matters. She _must_ tell him that it doesn’t matter, that better she drown in sadness than allow anger to swallow her heart-and-soul whole. “And we _are_ friends, we are.”

She rubs her bloody wrist against the dark drape of silk underneath her breastbone and ignores the burn that results from it. “You don’t even know me, okay?” There is no question in her voice.

Just jilted, bitter reality.

He stutters incredibly and her eyes roll, delicate and glassy and wet.

“You can’t avoid me, you won’t stop coming here.” He doesn’t have to grab her wrist. She feels like he has when her feet root against the dirt and her beautiful violet dress swipes across the ground, but it is her own soul that grounds her.

And just like that, he stands in front of her in a show of pride. She reacquaints herself with the hook of his nose and the vibrance of his clear eyes and the shavings of wood curled against his tunic.

He kisses her and it is clumsy and awful.

It is the first time she feels free.

So she pinches his chin to tilt his face down, coaxes his mouth open, and gives him time to learn the right way of things.

…

She is far from sure of anything. When she sits down on the dock underneath the frail light of the moon, she examines everything (his motives, her motives, her life, his life) but never anything all huddled together.

They are not together; they are as far apart as the land’s edge and the expansive sky, vastly coexisting but never once touching.

Men are selfish, greedy little things. She is certain of one thing, that he will not steal any more kisses from her lips for the sake of calling them his own.

“You’re here.”

His whisper drags down her bare arms and for a moment she wants to teeter forward and splash into the water. (And he will probably try to save her, but she will probably try to drown.)

She doesn’t want to, but she crawls onto her hands and knees, pushes herself to her feet. Her dress is tearing rust-red on one side, her hair half pulled up to one side of her head; she should feel something like pretty with rich curls neatly arranged with fancy clips, but there is nothing but empty cold spaces in her lungs. “I’m here, but I should go now.”

She doesn’t ever remember his boat being carved to completion, but she can see a window peeking out of one side, his fingers tucked inside of it. He quakes with shy indecision and she just needs to slip past him and go home.

(The funny thing is that she doesn’t kiss him; she just happens to bump into his mouth with the crinkle of her own.)

“Are we still not friends?” He asks against the dart of her tongue on his lips and it is then that she realizes she doesn’t even like this stranger and they have kissed, they have shared in this together.

“We can’t be friends,” her words whisper out in a sigh. Her mouth pulls away but her eyes stay locked on him, on the gentle pink swell of his lips. His fingers hook inside of the boat again.

 _Friends_ is dangerous, it is rushing river water silence and stolen things like kisses and breath and it is _lovers_.

She cannot. And she should not.

“How am I supposed to stop myself from kissing you then?” When he tilts his head, she can see the pinpricks of his stubble on his cheeks and breathe in the warmth of his scent. “Or how am I supposed to stop you from kissing me?”

_I guess you can’t._

She banishes that thought with wildfire rapid speed. “Control yourself.”

“You weren’t saying that last night.” She hears the shock and hurt in his voice but the statement rings with bitter bravado in her head. (She slaps him across the face for it anyway.)

“Don’t be a fool, boy,” she hisses, and then she is gone. But she should have known better; it is the sky’s temptation to kiss the earth twice with the glow of the sun.

…

Two kisses and she is mental.

Her hair soaks in the river water and the moon is only a crisp yellow glow in the sky, a fingernail hanging from the stars. She should have stayed in the water, stayed underneath the dock where he couldn’t see her.

When he shows up, she floats back from the edge slowly, lets the chill of the water shiver through her bones. There is a heavy sigh from his lips and she can almost see it and the breath that curls like fog in the air in front of him.

Two kisses and he carves his wooden boat alone.

 

…

 **iii. daydreams of you**  
where we can hold hands and just be

…

She gives it a week. The water is graciously cold and she doesn’t mind it because it distracts her from simple things. (Like the fact that he continues to come to the dock, even after a week.) She kicks her feet and floats with ease and the moon glimmers overhead, slipping between broken boards to glide across the water.

He sits on the edge of the dock and swings his feet back and forth with a slow ease. She contemplates swimming out into the open water, underneath his feet and twisting through the ocean, but she finds herself frozen as he begins to carve and toss wooden shavings into the water.

Something clatters on the dock overhead and she flinches.

“Hey,” he mumbles and she stares up through the cracks as he picks up the thin shiv by its handle; his eyes focus and then widen and then, “hey!”

It’s a long story, but he drags her out of the river, dripping water across the dock and bare feet slapping against the wood.

“I didn’t know you were a river spirit.” His laugh is teasing and he doesn’t have much to offer in the way of warmth except his hands moving over her arms as she wrings out her skirts.

“I told you. I am always here.” She tries not to smile but it breaks apart her lips with shining teeth.

He touches warm fingers to the tip of her face. “Stay out of the water, all right?” She must look a sight but his eyes don’t move from her face, don’t dissolve the look of adoration in grey gaze.

She shakes her head and sprays water over the both of them.

When he kisses her, it is like an offering.

…

Without the starlight dappled over his features, she almost doesn’t recognize him.

But syllables click in the air, and, “ _Tlaloc_ ,” a name only she would recognize. And she isn’t wearing her fine purple silk, but she is still adorned like a gem on the arm of that governor’s son in the middle of the village square.

Her eyes pin onto his and speak volumes of their own, familiar stares and smiles contained in clear eyes.

The governor’s son, Kenta, has a pale, shimmering grin for him, personally. “It’s nice to see you’re doing well.” He relinquishes her arm to twist and face him, and it is her own strategic choice that leaves her face in the opposite direction. “I hope everything is coming along well enough for the festival.”

A festival. “Perfectly.”

She feels like an ornament strapped to his wrist when she is finally regarded with a nod and a smile that she returns, shaky. “The lady and I will see you and your father there, then.”

She tips her head down in deference but her eyes are steadfast, even when he walks away.

…

“The festival?”

“I am a wood carver, you know.” He looks down at her hand uncertainly, but he doesn’t reach. Only part of her is grateful for it, but she doesn’t speak. “I helped my father make some of the masks.”

Her dress from earlier that day is still tangled around her legs, smooth scarlet fabric tight against her frame. Her hair is not elegant at all, stringy and loose, but she can slide into the water and float away, and that is all the feeling she needs to retain.

“Will you really go?”

She blinks. It should stand that she doesn’t have a choice, especially when the governor’s son plans to ask her in front of her mother, who would never refuse him. Her nod is hollow, but sturdy.

His smile tempers her nerves. “I’ll have a special mask to wear, just for you then.”

He leans until he’s entirely too close and she wants to drag her lips across his, but something locks up in her bones. And he senses it, because he kisses the rise of her cheekbone gently, and walks away.

…

The star-light lanterns trace pathways through the center of the village, sparkle and glint off of the water as people walk along the organized vendors on the shore. The governor being in town with his son is great enough cause for a celebration, especially for a festival with luxurious foods and elegant masks and a night swaddled comfortably in the arms of summer breezes.

Her mother makes sure to spend more time on her hair tonight, curling each strand to perfection with impatient fingers and pins and heated combs over coals. And she feels pretty with war paint makeup and decorative shoes and a dainty tilt to her walk. Something about being on the arm of the governor’s son makes her stomach curdle and turn over on itself, but Kenta is a gentleman in every way.

“Hey,” his voice interrupts her thoughts, and she honestly doesn’t mean to smile. “I brought my mask.”

He is stunning, with dark curls of hair and clear steely eyes, and gripped tight between his hands is a grotesque smirk painted bone-white with expert hands. It is blue, like rushing water, and it soothes her completely. Her fingers crinkle as she grips the ends of the mask, pokes the teeth that stick out.

“It’s pretty ugly.” She laughs, but holds it up to her face regardless. “I thought, maybe, if I could carve a mask from rainwater and personify a storm, then maybe it would be impressive enough for you, _Tlaloc_.” He still calls her that, and she doesn’t know whether to be happy about it anymore.

Her fingers skim over the smooth polish of the wood and the snarling grin of the impish figure. “It is everything you said it would be,” she says quietly.

It is dark on the beach but his fingers are pale, bone-thin against her dusky cheeks. The sky is clear but her head feels heavy, dripping, swaying+ with eternal rain cracked open from clouds inside of her skull.

 _She_ kisses him first, jaw working deeper and deeper, but he is the one who move away first, though his hand is still anchored on her waist. “Have fun tonight,” he murmurs gently.

Her fingers burn where the mask had been tucked in the bends of her knuckles and her lips burn where his had touched hers.

…

She finds him before the festival is over, after she wipes the smudges of her lips into normal, pale color again.

“Come meet me on the docks?” Her whisper is almost inaudible, the tip of his head almost unnoticeable.

…

She can’t bring herself to climb out of the water when she hears his footsteps on the dock. Instead, she drags her hair through her fingers and over her shoulders, wonders if she could surprise him. He sits on the edge of the dock again and she almost expects him to peek over the side and peer towards the underside in an attempt to see her.

(Well, _almost_.)

Footsteps sound overhead and between river water sloshing in and out of her ears, she hears snatches of gentle words, glances up to see feet huddled in close proximity.

And then there is a splash, and then there is a scream.

The scream is hers.

She swims strong against the fear turning acidic in the bottom of her stomach and she sees thin hands push down atop black hair. “You’re both fools!” She should know the venom and disdain of her mother’s voice but she looks like the harbinger of vengeance with paint streaks in her grey-black hair and the beautiful drape of violet cloth much like hers.

Her eyes freeze around the image of him underneath the water, swallowing up a ribcage full of water until he is as still as the cloudless night sky.

On the dock, she sees the wide brim of a hat with a veil sewed around it. On the dock, she sees an extravagantly detailed wooden boat.

…

 **iv. drain my heart of color  
** in a world without you

…

He drowns (her mother drowns him). She holds him in her arms when her mother wades out of the water as if she is thick with blood instead.

She floats with his body in the river and ducks her head down enough so that her tears are nothing but river tributaries.

…

She is a painter’s daughter without the skill.

Messy, shaken fingers smudge their prints across the polished hull, dirty blue hues spread along the bottom and bright reds across the top.

She is no artist but she carries his masterpiece to the other side of the village. His mother, a woman whose bones cry from exhaustion, wraps her up in a hug. She expects hatred to waft off of her, holding the daughter of the one who wrung her son’s air from his lungs, but there is nothing but sorrow. (Maybe she feels their kisses in her embrace, maybe she smells like him and fresh water, maybe there is love burrowed deep under her skin that lingers.)

His sister is incoherent but her son bounces on her hip, ignorant giggles drowning out the distress. He takes the toy boat in his tiny hands and waves it with a noise that sounds like train tracks.

She has given away everything she has.

(She has given away everything he gave her.)

…

She, too, is drowning.

She cannot go to the docks without being surrounded by curious, judging eyes. Everyone sends her stretched sad gazes and whispers about the wood carver’s son and the painter’s daughter and _those poor darlings_ and _her desperate mother_ and _she is fixing to give her away to royalty_.

She wants to burn that beautiful violet dress but instead she rubs scarlet blood red all over the front of it.

And then she pushes past them all and hurls it into the river.

…

Her new lifeblood is that beautiful boy. He is happy to go to the water’s edge and skim the chipped paint of his boat through the froth on the shore.

His smile is crooked and clumsy like _his_ and it drags a terrible ache through her chest. He is so much like his uncle, like Yori.

Funny how she learns his name once he is gone.

Once she can never call it.

“He liked you more than I’ve ever seen him like anyone,” his sister says when she finds them where they always are at the crest of the river. “He always insisted he couldn’t carve a gift in the house if we were around, but he never left until night.”

“Hanako,” she says, and blinks back tears at the sounds of infantile giggling, “I never got to tell him that my name…it’s Hanako.”

“Hana,” his sister perforates the syllables, and for all the judgment she expects to see in her face, there is none. “He would have liked it.”

She dips her hands down into the water and it is such an unfamiliar chill that she has to draw them back and warm them over. “He would have liked any name,” she corrects sadly.

…

It is a miracle that she returns to the river so soon.

The water drags her down and bubbles in her mouth tragically. And she almost spits it out but the salt bites on the inside of her cheeks and she is crying, too.

She doesn’t drown that day.

 _That_ is the miracle.

…

“I’m doing you a favor, Hanako.”

It’s been so long since her mother called her anything but beautiful, flower blossom, the pride and joy and apple of her eye. Her distaste runs bitter in the back of her throat but she doesn’t take any offense. A necklace is draped around her neck from behind and fastened, and her hair is a complex spiral of curls stacked in the center of her head.

“You are doing _nothing_ for me.” Her tone is the acerbic tone she expects a woman of politesse would have, the way she will become when she is to be married the same day.

She is bitter because everyone will be at this wedding, even Yori’s family. They will all watch her give herself away to someone a shadow less worthy than their son, watch her vow to lies because she has already promised herself, her _heart_ , to someone else.

“You look beautiful.” It doesn’t feel like a compliment at all. “So smile, you only get one wedding day.”

She would rather die than get married.

…

 **v. let them live, let them live**  
before they come for us

…

It is by the water she spends her mornings, making empty promises to sea foam waves and offers to merciless gods to snatch her away from this Spirits-forsaken place.

One day, she will walk the river looking for his restless soul.


	2. like the setting sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the beginning of a lengthy journey and healing between friends that falls like the setting sun.

…

 **i. ghosts ride through the cemetery  
** on the brink of insanity

…

He doesn’t know who else to call.

There is no grand reception for the arrival of the Avatar, and he doesn’t make a show to attest to it, either. He grips Zuko in a hug too strong to belong to his friend, thin and willowy and gentle, but a touch suffocating. From over Aang’s shoulder, he can see Appa flop down in the center of the brick plaza.

“You know I’m always here to help you, Zuko,” his hands draw from around his friend and fold over his chest. Aang has grown, but he is still a wiry spindle in comparison to the Fire Lord, whose shoulders are solid and his gaze steady.

A quiet cough announces Katara as she steps towards the two of them, swaying and smiling, yet shy. Her fingers curl sections of her hair behind her ears as she moves up to stand amongst them, and Zuko turns his head down at the sight of her, a smile that stretches personably in her presence.

Katara takes his smile as cue to step into the space of his body. He startles, a flash of sixteen and awkward twitching in his arms, but then he envelops her into a tight hug. He counts one, two, three, and inhales deeply when he pulls away from her first. (Her nails drag down his shoulder blades and it is a gentle scratching burn that he doesn’t seem to mind.)

“I didn’t know you two were traveling together,” Zuko says softly as Katara steps backwards to stand next to the young Avatar, and her cheeks are immediately red-hot with blush.

“We’re not traveling together.”

Aang corroborates immediately, a tone more shallow than hers. “We’re not. I got your message while I was at the Southern Air Temple and thought I could swing around and bring Katara with me.”

Katara’s fingers twist anxiously in the corner of her tunic but her smile is natural and easy. “I’m here to help, too.”

Panic wells in the back of his throat, but at the sight of his two friends, he finds a way to swallow it back down. “Will Appa be fine out here on his own? There are some things I’d like to show you.”

Aang blinks. Once, then again. His smile is almost contagious but entirely unnerving as he answers. “Of course, he’ll be fine! He has Momo to keep him company, after all.”

Zuko doesn’t dare ask.

The Royal Palace is cut and hollowed out in his memories of it, but lately, Zuko becomes accustomed to the hallways being occupied by any variety of his staff, though they keep their heads bowed and their paces hurried.

This is the first time he walks the hallways with his companions and it feels like the glow on the walls is from the muted smile on his lips. Aang’s steps are light and he glides over the tiles, content with Zuko’s gentle corrections of where precisely they are headed. But Katara lingers a step behind him, a step to the side, and is silent until they arrive.

His office is resplendent, but dusty with neglect. Gold glitters from every corner of the room, shelves lined with trinkets gathered from places around the world, and it all surrounds a plain desk, twisted together of sturdy wood and marble. Zuko hates this room the most, even more than the canopy of nightmares that covers his bedroom in the evening twilight.

“People are being killed,” he says brusquely, sliding into the chair at his desk, “ _women_ are being killed.” Twenty sits heavily on his shoulders and cups the black rings under his eyes, but Zuko doesn’t look tired as much as he looks dried out and angry, and he feels even less.

Katara looks devastated for all its worth, and she sinks against the frame of the door. Her eyes, a light trickle of blue, slide over the walls, take in every inch of the room. Aang exudes nothing but sorrow and solemn nodding for what feels like too long.

“I can’t protect anyone like this,” he trips over the bitter note in his voice as his jaw ticks, hardens, “so I’ve asked my uncle to come and act in my place so I can accompany you two to the village where it all started. According to your brother, everyone else should be along in two weeks’ time.”

Zuko gazes at Katara steadily and her own eyes freeze over with something frigid and spiteful. “Good.”

…

Aang leaves after they finish talking. Zuko has already torn out the headpiece and elaborate tie of his hair, shaking the length down to tie it neatly at the nape of his neck, and his hands shake over stacks of documents piled in a corner of his desk.

“It’s been about two years,” Katara says, although it seems more of an afterthought to herself. She rubs her hand over the bare crook of her elbow, smooths her fingers up her sleeve to claw at her shoulder. Zuko can’t get over the narrowness of her face and the thickness of her hair and the fullness of her smile worried between her lips. She looks as though she will peel out of her skin at any moment and it reminds him too painfully of the girl he’d watch dismantle under exhaustion of wartime responsibility.

“I thought you and Aang would stay together for sure.” It’s a bold lie and he knows it, but at least it cracks a toothy smile from her.

Even her smile seems foreign, like an elegant dress slipped over her head that comes close to a complement, but falls desperately short. “It took me two years to take back my own life. Two years to realize I wasn’t even _living_ my own life.” He can’t quite bring himself to make eye contact with her, but he thinks to himself that he understands, and hopes that somehow, she feels his understanding, too.

“You’re in the South Pole now.” This time, her smile is genuine and sparkling, like pure snow under the sun.

“Teaching. And fighting idiot boys,” her eyes smile, too, “nothing I can’t be expected to handle.”

Zuko laughs and it hurts because of how real it is.

The silence in the room is not for comfort, but there is an ease to it that doesn’t leave either of them squirming. Katara sighs, a long suffering shudder dragging down her spine, and for the first time since she has arrived, Zuko _really_ soaks himself in her presence. Her hair twists into spirals that flow over her shoulders, glimmering waterfalls of russet curls lacking restraint; even the tiny azure beads normally fastened at the edges of her hair are absent. (It reminds him faintly of what she’d looked like in the catacombs, churning a cyclone of ocean water underneath her feet with Aang slung in her arms like a static-saturated rag doll.) Her hair is longer, though, and her face is thinner, and when she catches him looking at her, her expression lacks the volatile edge that would have once shattered into abrasive emotion meant to shred him like shards of glass.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you, you know.”

It’s a simple observation that isn’t meant to mean anything (but it means everything). Katara looks lost, looks ashamed, looks to be separate slivers of too many different things all at once.

“At least you have forgiven me for staying away,” her lips rise to one side, a quirky smile meant to tease, and Zuko toys with the words that didn’t quite come to him when Aang had been standing before him.

 _I missed you_. “At least you haven’t forgotten me.” It’s a sharp quip and for seconds, it wounds; Katara’s eyes flash with hurt but just as swiftly, the tide rolls over in blue eyes and she is back to smiling, back to covertness. 

Her fingers are thick in her hair as she moves to sit on the plush couch tucked in the corner of the room. “Don’t be ridiculous, Zuko,” her joking lilt is falling away fast and her voice is airy with soft comfort, “I couldn’t do that if I tried.” Her eyes flick up from beneath the curled curtains of her hair and a smile stretches all the way up to the curves of her cheeks.

Aang appears and Zuko doesn’t even have time to contemplate her words any further than that. His hands slip into the folds of his robes, eyes darting around expectantly. “When are we leaving?”

Zuko scratches at the back of his head, then slips his fingers into his hair and drags the ribbon out of the smooth strands of dark hair. “In the morning,” he side eyes the sunset dripping down the windowsill, and then turns his attention back to Aang, “you guys can get some rest and I’ll have some time to write to the others.”

“Sounds good, your Highness!” Aang smiles and Zuko winces, but he still smiles in return. Katara smiles too, rises from her cushion in the couch to stand in the doorway with Aang. There is a palpable distance between the two of them and Zuko marvels at Aang’s diligence towards maintaining that.

They both seem to be staring at him, though, and he watches them with a quirked brow. “Aren’t you going to show us to our rooms?” Katara finally speaks up, and Zuko flushes, nodding slowly.

“I was going to,” his hands swivel back towards his desk and gesture meaninglessly, “I guess I could—I mean, it would be easier, and—yeah, okay, I’m coming.”

The two of them slip out into the hallway while the Fire Lord moves around his desk, sorting things through piles and stacking papers into key-locked drawers, before everything is arranged in careful order. His hair is still loose around his shoulders when he joins them in the hallway, looking between the two of them.

Nothing really seems right, this way; it hadn’t been his place to understand the relationship between his two friends, but he cared deeply for the both of them, risked his life for both of them in his own ways. (He had been nothing but concerned when Toph told him they split up, but Katara’s letters never dwelt long on the subject and Aang always had something vaguely existential to say about their relationship.) And now, Katara and Aang were two years older than they had been, two years equidistant from one another after it was all said and done.

“Your rooms are adjacent to mine,” Zuko says, motioning to the row of doors with painted gold frames; his stands out from the guest rooms simply for the guard that stands in the threshold. “If you should need anything, you know where to find me, all right?”

Aang, still smiling, nods and moves past him, claiming the room to the left without so much as a pleasant goodnight. Zuko turns to Katara but she is a shadow barely held together, a nervous smile that threatens to burst into tears.

“Goodnight, Katara,” he can’t find a smile appropriate, but he lifts his hand and turns his head, and she returns his half-cocked wave before heading for her own room.

…

 **ii. it’s been a while since i’ve seen your smile  
** can’t keep runnin’ away

…

Katara is the only one to meet him at the harbor with the escort of his Royal Guard. Zuko can’t help but call the light-bright fear in her eyes _haunted_ , because it is a harrowing ghostly feeling he has experienced so many times.

“Aang is going to follow on Appa,” she adjusts the strap on her shoulder, hair tangled around the leather loop of her knapsack, but if it causes her any inconvenience, she doesn’t say anything to Zuko.

The harbor is sparkling beyond the sunrise, waves smooth and curling against the spilled gold of the sun along the coast, and the outline of Zuko’s more modest, private ships still stands in a worthy silhouette against the sky. And then there is Katara, smiling and falling apart all at once, restless in her bones but resigning herself to stillness, and it is more tragic than he could imagine his last sunrise ever being.

“C’mon, Katara,” he says quietly, lets his guard precede him onto the ship. It takes her a few faltering steps to walk beside him, and Zuko lays a hand on the small curve of her back as he leads her forward.

…

The village is beautiful during the daylight, but they all arrive in the middle of the night. Barren streets shouldn’t come to Zuko’s surprise at all considering everything that has been going on, but he can see Katara and Aang at his sides, looking around curiously. The village is staunch like death without a single light to lend it life.

“According to reports, there has been something killing the women who go out at night.” Zuko grimaces, his mouth a pale line. “There are no bodies…but there are no survivors, either.”

Katara crinkles her nose and peers up at him, a motion completely lost in his damaged peripheral vision. “What can we do?” Her voice is so soft that he barely hears her, but gentle enough for this particular subject.

Zuko lifts his shoulders in a half shrug and sighs heavily. “At this point, curfew and escorts have been the best I can do. I was hoping maybe you two would have some idea where to start…the whole spiritual guidance is a foreign concept to me.”

Aang looks so much different in clothes that fit him better, almost like the eighteen year old that he truly is. “I don’t know about ideas,” he trails off uncertainly, but winds himself closer to Zuko despite the warmth of the night, “but you know I—we—there’s nothing more important than helping a friend.” He smiles and it is faint, awkward; Katara nods from her space on the other side of him.

“Thank you,” Zuko murmurs quietly, and he can feel them both at his side, smiling.

…

Zuko declines being put up in a cliffside house because there are people _dying_ and he can’t be bothered with a beautiful view of the ocean when that is where people are being laid to rest. So he is more than happy enough to stay in a vacant home in the village, two large rooms that they inhabit. They take up a wall each, Zuko easily stretching across the space while Katara and Aang curl into their futons.

The candles go out for the evening and Zuko sighs.

“Almost like camping,” Aang says fondly, and he can hear the inhale of tiny laughter from Katara’s side of the room.

“It’s been so long.” The weight of Katara’s voice is noticeable in the darkness, but neither one of them speak up, neither one addresses the threat of tears.

Katara has been on the verge of tears since she arrived and Zuko isn’t sure whether it is the newness of the pained relationship between her and Aang or some other influential event, some sensation brought to life by the humid Fire Nation sunshine.

He’s not sure why he speaks. It could be that he is on the precipice of sleep and it makes him vulnerable, but her name floats from his lips across the room to comfort. “Katara,” his voice is firm in its reassurance but soft in pitch, and he can hear everything come to a halt, “it won’t always be that way.”

There is silence for a long while. Zuko isn’t sure what to do as his eyes get heavy, as he turns his face into his pillow, and then there is, “Thank you. Goodnight, Zuko.”

…

“Are you going to tell me what’s up with you?”

Something prompts the blunt question because Katara’s eyes crack open, wide and alarmed and full of blue worry, but Zuko’s lips are pulled into an unimpressed frown and his eyes are steady in the sea of her blue irises. Katara sighs, a shudder in the back of her throat.

“I just—” Her eyes flit over to the doorway. Aang has been gone since sunrise, a meditation habit he has found himself in upon his arrival. It is a habit Zuko is familiar with and he knows how peaceful, how disconnected he can become. “I feel like there’s still so much to talk about. When I said I needed some time…he just accepted it. And I guess that’s okay, I guess I just wasn’t ready.”

Katara slides her legs off of the futon and lets them dangle above the floor, her hands clenching the sides, her hair frizzy and long over her shoulders. “I don’t think I really got all of myself back, not yet.”

Zuko nods but he doesn’t move from where he is seated. There is nothing he can do to help, nothing he can do to restore that part of her back to herself, so he simply nods—one day, perhaps, he will be able to make it up to her.

“If it makes you feel better, I’ll let you tease me a little.”

And it’s silly, but it brightens Katara almost immediately. “About what?” Her grin is sly and Zuko laughs, albeit a tinge of nervousness in the corners of the sound.

“Anything. You tend to find a subject fairly easily,” he rolls his eyes, and Katara looks more than satisfied with the arrangement.

She laughs, a sharp bark of a noise, and drags the mess of her hair so that it falls down her back, lies behind her shoulders. “I won’t tease you, Zuko. But I appreciate the offer more than you know.”

Zuko grins, despite everything. “That’s what I’m here for, you know.”

“For me to tease?” She fires back immediately, eyes glinting with something that isn’t sadness for the first time since she arrived here, and he is taken aback for a moment.

Katara notices too because the smile fades into a faint one as she stands, moves over to his side to sit with him on the futon. She is so small compared to him; a narrow face, slim shoulders, tiny palms overturned next to his.

He clears his throat and glances at her from the side. “For whatever you need,” he smiles, lopsided but genuine, “I’m sorry it’s been so long.”

Katara pats his shoulder, smiles because, “It’s okay, Zuko. Really, it is.”

They sit with their shoulders tucked together for a few moments longer before Zuko stands, stretches his arms overhead, and offers her a hand. Katara blinks up at him, her face wrinkled in concern, but he smiles and it floats away, out of the lines of her mouth until she is smiling, too.

“We should go find Aang. We have a lot of work to do.”


	3. a road long and untraveled

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a myriad of emotions and a thousand new confessions on a road long and untraveled.

…

**i. if you wanted i could show you  
** how to build your fences

…

Two days pass before they find out anything useful. In the middle of their meditation, Katara returns to their village home, arms full of wrapped packages. Zuko is the only one of them to rise, hands spread to catch the overflow from her hands, and raises a brow curiously at her.

“Listen,” she defends as she moves, like a whirlwind, to her corner of the room, and it reminds him of Aang so suddenly that it stuns him, “it was the only way I could talk to the vendors without seeming too suspicious.” It takes him a few seconds, but he registers gratitude in the edges of her smile, and he can’t help but find himself mimicking one in return. It’s odd to him to see how much of his two friends have overlapped over the years, even if it seems that they can’t stand to be in the same room with one another anymore.

Zuko carefully unfolds the paper around the package in his hands and squints down at the material hanging over his palms. Katara is speaking, but his eyes are tracing the thin, delicate stream of gold along the front of the silk dress. It is smooth in his grip and he finds himself picturing Katara in the deep, dark violet of the dress before something thuds against the center of his chest and lands atop the garment.

“Did you just—”

“I can’t _believe_ you just tuned me out,” is her response, hands nested on her hips. It jolts Zuko back into their reality for a moment; he notices that Aang is still in their place on the floor, bright eyes staring up at the two of them. And although his gaze is fixed on Zuko, there are flickers and flashes of it towards Katara when she isn’t paying close enough attention. Out of the corner of his good eye, he can see the wadded up scrap of paper she’d tossed at him to get his attention in the first place.

“I’m sorry, can we start over?”

The apology seems to be worth it. Katara softens, though her expression seems to be one of mild annoyance. “According to one of the vendors, this isn’t the first series of disappearances that have occurred in this town. He says that there have been two other times like it, but none of them have been recent. And they only seem to last for a couple of weeks at a time.”

Zuko frowns, crosses back towards her side of the room to return her dress. He sits carefully on the edge of her cot, his mind working with the new information.

“There’s no pattern?” Aang’s voice is slightly disappointed.

“Not that I can seem to find.” Katara looks pained for every word she directs towards him, but continues. “They happen very frequently for a couple of weeks and then years again until the next one. All I can seem to get is that a lot of the people here think it has something to do with the spirits.”

The silence is louder than their conversation, but Zuko maintains it for a few moments. The new information is slightly overwhelming, but there is already more than he had been able to find on his own. In the back of his mind, there was still a slim hope that he would be able to return to the Capital sooner rather than later. He knew better than that, though; the sinking feeling in the bottom of his stomach was too heavy to be anything close to a resolution.

“I’m going to go finish meditating,” Aang is on his feet before Zuko can respond, “you can come join me if you like.”

He floats through the door before Zuko can answer him, and when he catches the expression on Katara’s face, it makes his heart ache for his friends. “Katara…”

The sound of his voice is enough to drag her back into her own body, because she recoils for a moment and then looks away, slightly ashamed. “Sorry,” her voice is quiet, and she faces away from him as she arranges all of her purchases neatly in her corner of the room, “I wish he wasn’t like that around me, that’s all.”

Zuko meanders towards the open door and shuts it carefully. He can sense the tension in her shoulders, but Katara continues folding her clothes and arranging them on the crooked corner shelf without even blinking in his direction. It isn’t clear what moves him, but he finds his hands wrapped around the edges of hers, fingers weaving the soft fabric from her grip and pulling it free.

“Can we talk about it?” Her palms are cold and it is the only way he knows that he is still holding her hands, soft and trembling in his.

Katara sighs, “This is why I didn’t write you about it, Zuko. I still haven’t figured out what to say, and I haven’t talked to Aang, either, and I just—” She sits on the edge of her cot, an abrupt movement that drops her palms into her own lap.

“I just need you two to...talk about it. Or stop whatever you’re doing, because it’s hurting.” He watches her face crinkle and decides to sit next to her, carefully choosing the next few words. “I can tell.”

Her expression falters for a split second, frustration written across the frown on her lips, but she pulls it back until it is nothing but a faint memory of near confessions. “It’s only been a couple of months since we split up, but I miss him.” Katara takes turns curling her fingers into the spaces of her own knuckles and pulling them apart while she talks, and it distracts Zuko’s gaze from her face for a while.

“I wrote him a letter once, you know. And I told him that I missed him, because I did, and even if things didn’t work out with us, he was still my best friend. I spent _years_ of my life being in love with him.” She shakes her head gently and it draws his attention back to her face, solemn and sad. “He wrote back and said that he was giving me all of the space that I asked for, that I couldn’t possibly miss him since I wanted to be broken up anyway. But…”

“But you don’t,” Zuko interjects, and it is enough to startle Katara; a tear jerks down her cheek, and she wipes it away before she shakes her head vigorously.

“No, I do. Aang…Aang saw me as someone I knew I could never be. But I still loved him, and I still wanted to be close to him. I just knew…I knew we couldn’t last as a couple. I didn’t know I was losing our friendship, too.”

The air feels heavy, and Zuko wonders if Katara is vulnerable enough to cry. So, he waits for her to turn her head into the side of his shoulder and cry, while Aang is outside searching for his own peace. But she doesn’t. Katara just sits there, with her hand clasped in her other hand, her eyes distant, her body cold.

…

**ii. on this dark day, right in plain view  
** i won’t let you down, though

…

“What’s wrong?”

They keep to the same pattern over the next few days. Zuko rises with the sun, and Aang rises with Zuko, always humming and buzzing around their room with a whirlwind underneath each heel. Katara isn’t far behind them, but she leaves them to their meditation and heads into the marketplace to scout for news to bring back.

This morning is different. Katara is standing in front of them, blocking out the sunlight pouring down over her shoulder with her hands on her hips. And though Aang seems to want nothing to do with her on most occasions, Zuko catches a rare moment where he is entranced with the sight of her, simply staring up at her with an awed expression. Zuko matches it, however, because of how she looks.

Katara’s hair is tied into a curly knot at the top of her head, and a smooth, golden scarf is twisted over the top of her bun, sliding down to wrap at the line of her collar. Her clothes are very Fire Nation casual, but the stray curls that fall into her face are without beads, and she almost looks like she belongs in the Capital, her face narrowed in a condescension that Zuko finds almost familiar.

“What’s _wrong_ with you two?” This time, though, both of them stop staring at her and each get to their feet, rattling off a series of mumbled excuses towards her. But everything falls back into place almost immediately; Katara shirks back into silence, and Aang waltzes off with a slight indifference.

“I thought it would be a good idea if we all go to the village square,” Katara says to Zuko, but her eyes are focused on where Aang has disappeared into the next room. He doesn’t point it out, though; instead, he agrees with her and turns his attention to the glimmering fabric stretched over her head.

…

The village square marketplace is teeming with people, to the point where Zuko fears that he may be recognized. Even with a high hood and his head tilted down, he suspects that some of the townspeople are whispering about him when he passes, until Katara links her arm in his and laughs loudly.

For a moment, Zuko’s cheeks flush and he looks around, but no one is watching them anymore. Katara pats his forearm twice, but doesn’t release her grip. “Relax, Fire Lord,” she leans in to whisper to him, and then tips him towards several of the booths lined up on the end that are crammed full of beautiful fabrics and several sparkling trinkets.

They walk in a peaceable silence. Zuko doesn’t know what Katara did, but no one pays too close attention to him now that she is with him, perched on his arm and tilting them from side to side to look at each stand nearby. Getting through the crowds of people is somehow easier to navigate with her at his side, he thinks. And it seems to be enough of a whimsy to keep her mind away from Aang, away from the sadness she’d let show on her face when they’d left their village home with just the two of them and him lingering behind.

“Would it kill you to have a good time? You look like someone pushed you down into the mud.” Katara whispers into his side with a wry smile on her face, and it catches Zuko offguard. Maybe it is the ease with which she moves around the crowds, as if she belongs amongst them, which distracts the other civilians from his presence. But Zuko can’t quite untangle his thoughts immediately; he shoots a well-placed glare in her direction, and doesn’t deny to himself how pleased he is when she laughs in return.

Everything seems to be going fine, until they happen upon a rickety fruit stand surrounded by patrons. Aang is standing there, his fist extended, rolling a coin over his knuckles for a little boy standing at the edge of the stand with a mango clutched in his palms. He laughs when Aang flips the coin in the opposite direction, and then offers it with his open palm. They’re already too close, because Aang spots them, eyes wide and clear. Katara’s hand slides off of his arm as she moves forward, and Zuko watches the little boy who stares at Katara for a moment before throwing himself into her legs.

“Whoa,” she says as Zuko approaches the two of them, the little boy tangling himself between Katara’s legs, pushing her skirts into disarray, “are you okay?”

His small hands clasp the stitching of her skirt and he peers up at her, a toothy grin. “I thought I was lucky enough to meet the Avatar,” he says in a breathy voice, “but you look just like _her_.”

Katara kneels down, her eyes searching his little face, but he only raises both of his hands to her cheeks reverently. “Like who?” Her voice is gentle and she doesn’t pull away from the invasive touch of his hands. Zuko feels slightly uneasy with the way this young child speaks, but taking one look at Aang’s expression reveals that he’s not alone in that feeling. He still wants to question the Avatar on how he got to the marketplace in the first place, but the little boy’s voice cuts through his focus.

“The Painted Lady,” he breathes, touches the soft hair at her temples, and then pulls his hands away, “you look just like how all the books have her portrait painted. Can I show you something?”

Before any of them can protest, he is yanking at Katara’s skirts with all of his strength. It only takes a second for her to stumble along behind him, trying to keep pace and find her footing at the same time. Zuko doesn’t trust him, but he can’t leave Katara alone, so he tucks his hood further down and falls into step with Aang as they lead the way.

…

 **iii. of the bustling city and its busy heart  
** from dusk til dawn we’re drifting away

…

The little boy pulls Katara down a narrow path from the marketplace, following it until it opens up into a winding road. The dirt around them is slightly wet and packed down, enough of an indication to Zuko that they are somewhere near the coastline, where there will be ships and merchants and sailors arriving at the harbor.

“Where are we going?” Katara asks, but her question is ignored. After a few moments of trudging down the path, he leads them towards the docks down a sprawling hillside, where there are only seaside merchants and children playing by shallow water.

“We all believe in the Painted Lady,” he starts as they hit the dock, winding their way between the people who linger around the port, “so much that the sailors regularly set up these dedications to her. My father is a sailor, and he says that we need her now more than ever.”

Zuko remembers seeing the dedications in earlier years, but not as elegantly adorned as they are now. There are drawings and paintings of the ethereal figure lined up along the dock with each one surrounded by flowers, candles, and gifts; he can’t deny the superficial similarities between Katara and the spirit-girl, especially with the brightness of her eyes in her paintings. But the dedication that they stop in front of is slightly different than the others. The center of it is a picture of a young girl who doesn’t look a day over twenty; it is the crooked smile on her face that strikes him with the familiar sense of having seen it before.

It doesn’t take long for him to see the connection, because one look at the little boy’s face renders the same crooked smile, though sad, on his lips. “My father says that it has been five years since my sister died and hopefully, this year, the Painted Lady will make sure none of the other girls we know die, either.”

Katara’s question slips out before either Zuko or Aang can articulate theirs. “Why is the Painted Lady going to help? Why this year?” Zuko catches her sorrowful look towards the girl in the picture and the way she turns the same sad glance towards the little boy still holding onto the ends of her skirt.

His eyes widen at her question, but Zuko doubts he has the capacity to be more emotional over his apparent loss. “We only have the Festival of the Veil every five years. It’s a huge celebration by the docks and everyone always wears cool masks and it’s really, really fun. But that’s when the stories all say the Painted Lady is free to roam our town, and that’s when the girls always go missing.”

The silence between the four of them is remarkable; the information soaks itself into Zuko’s thoughts almost immediately, with nothing but a wild flurry of thoughts about what could possibly be happening this year. The little boy folds himself into Katara’s legs again, and he isn’t surprised to see her with a comforting hand on his head.

“When is the Festival of the Veil this year, Zuko?” Aang’s question is accompanied by a few gentle pats on the arm, as if the Avatar can sense the trance of thought currently sweeping over him.

Zuko shakes his head, and it helps to clear his mind just enough to answer. “In two days.”

…

**iv. the cost of battle that you hate to fight  
** you woke up to brand new ground

…

“Read it to me?”

Aang’s voice catches him unaware. Swimming in his thoughts, the young Avatar’s voice is soft and simultaneously deeper than he remembers it being. He stretches across the side of Zuko’s cot, settling in beside him to peek over his shoulder. In those few moments, Zuko feels like they are young children again.

“Sure, Aang,” he smiles faintly, pulling the bound book closer between the two of them, clearing his throat. “‘You have three days to hide your town,’” he reads in a dramatic sing-song, “‘or else I will destroy it and make it my own.’ And the little boy cowered in the reeds, listening to the malevolent spirit striking a deal with the Painted Lady, ran back to his village and spread the news. The townspeople cried, ‘We’ll all be destroyed, unless we hide!’ But the little boy smiles and says, ‘I have an idea! A way we can hide! We can shut all the doors so he’ll never find his way inside!’”

Somewhere between this passage and the next, Aang tilts his head onto Zuko’s shoulder, sleepy-gray eyes staring into the vibrant pictures and small print along the bottom of the page. Oddly strange, but Zuko reminds himself with a flush of guilt that Aang is as much of his friend as Katara is, and that the young airbender is perfectly entitled to want to be close to him.

It must be clear that his thoughts are outside of the book because Aang sighs, and then blinks his wide eyes up at Zuko. “Don’t go all starry-eyed on me, Sifu H—”

“Please,” Zuko rolls his eyes graciously, “spare me the nickname. Just didn’t imagine I’d be getting intel on murders from a children’s book, you know?”

Aang is laughing, and it’s the first he’s seen from him since he arrived. He pulls the book into his lap and flips to a page with a dramatic storm sweeping over the village and the dark twist of the spirit painted in watercolors along the paper. “‘You have _one_ day to hide your town,’” Aang growls, his eyes slanted and his teeth bared, “‘or else I will destroy it and make it my own!’”  He rattles out his best impression of a diabolical laugh that he can manage, tumbling into Zuko’s side.

“And the little boy cowered in the reeds, listening to the malevolent spirit striking a deal with the Painted Lady, ran back to his village and spread the news. The townspeople cried, ‘We’ll all be destroyed, unless we hide!’  But the little boy frowns and says, ‘I had an idea! A way we could hide! But I tried shutting the doors and he found his way inside! I had an idea! A way we could hide! But he saw through the masks and he found his way inside!’ That night, a great sadness settled across the town as everyone prepared to spend one last night close with the ones they loved—”

It isn’t until Katara flits into the room that Zuko realizes how the two of them must look; Aang is wound around his arms, reading the book from Zuko’s lap with his facial expressions stretching and contorting from one extreme emotion to the next. And the vacant look on his face almost translates to peace, to the point where Katara’s face softens visibly at the sight of them leaning into one another. Her weakness is fleeting, however, because when she passes the two of them to move into the room they’ve designated for all of their clothes and returns to them, her face is a perfect picture of stoicism.

“Find anything nice?” Zuko asks plainly, but Aang holds on tight to the little storybook, tracing his fingers over the glimmering letters across the title.

Katara nods, curls swaying into her eyes. “There’s a lot of really nice things in these vendors’ booths, you know. You should take a look down there, especially if you’re trying to secure us some masks. They’re pretty hyped up over the Festival of the Veil.”

“Aang and I were just reading a book on it,” he plucks the book from Aang’s hand, which gets him an undignified squawk in return, “it’s a little childish but the perspective is the most spiritual that I can find without returning back to the Fire Nation Capital to access more reliable resources.”

It seems to cross her mind to join them and it is nearly visible to Zuko how she fights with herself over the decision to move closer; despite the turmoil, she steals a small space on his other side, leaning in to look at the painted pictures in the book. “What’s it about?”

Zuko sighs. “Long story short,” his eyes dart to the side to silence Aang’s theatrical insistence on reading the book the _right_ way, “A dark spirit came to this village to seize control, but the Painted Lady defended it. She had three days to protect them and the first two days, the villagers tried to hide in their houses and with disguises and masks. But on the third day, she lifted the protective veil she wears and covered the town with it so they couldn’t be found. So, they celebrate their triumph and her kindness by holding a three-day festival. It’s really quite interactive.”

The information seems to be as much for her to take in as it was for him, but she smiles to herself in the end. “That’s a really sweet celebration,” she grins, looking up at him.

For a moment, Zuko catches the serenity of the moment; Katara and Aang sitting together, albeit with himself as a barrier. Katara’s grin and Aang’s maniacal storytelling, and if he matched them up in his head, it almost seemed like the two of them were still friends.

“Well,” he says, and it disperses the tension-free moment, “I guess we better get started.”

 


	4. the river of fallen stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and we'll dance and fall in love again, on the river of fallen stars.

…

 **i. waiting for action  
** why won’t you come over here?

…

Whenever he finds himself thinking of Ursa, he tries to remember her in this way: her hand softly curved around his smaller one, her hair tumbling past her shoulders, her eyes warm and her smile full of kindness. He pictures her laughing with the vendors, handing coins to each and coming away with the shiniest of wares to distract her son. He was never a prince, then; just a three-year-old with the world caught in his eyes, happy to hold his mother’s hand throughout the village square. What he remembers most of all is the way she used the dress him when they would venture into the Caldera, just the two of them.

It feels much like how he is dressed when he accompanies Aang and Katara to the marketplace. Zuko’s given up his cloak for the time being, but is wearing a Fire Nation style tunic that cuts its hem down towards the center of his chest, and leaves his arms completely exposed. If he focuses, he can see the shattered edges of the lightning scar on his chest, not too far off in the past between the three of them.

Katara wears the same golden silk scarf to cover her hair and sticks close to his side; as it would happen, many of the people not only recognize their Fire Lord, but feel so obliged to approach him. Many citizens offer him glad tidings and express their pleasure at the fact that he has made time to enjoy the spirit of the Festival of the Veil with them, unbeknownst to his true motives. With each greeting, Zuko finds himself laying a hand over Katara’s smaller one that is safely nestled in the crook of his arm; with every gentle tap of her nails against his knuckles, he knows she is telling him that he can do this.

The marketplace is overflowing with people today, all swarming around each station in a last minute effort to secure the finishing touches to their ornate outfits. Zuko hasn’t seen Aang for what feels like an entire hour amongst the crowd; it rubs against his skin, the fact that he must be the buffer between his two friends because of the hurt that they have unintentionally dealt one another. But he only focuses on infusing as much normalcy into their lives as he can, at least until he can figure out a way to fix it.

Katara stops at the edge of a stand and lifts a mask that reminds Zuko of several things at once—the beautiful violet and gold dress, the watercolor rendering of the Painted Lady, the edges of her eyes when her mind is full to the brim. The mask is thin with gold rimming around the eyes and the edges. Around the lashes, glittering gems are inlaid in a gentle arc at the end of each corner, while the rest of the mask is a deep, royal violet.

She presses the mask against her face and her eyes glint against the golden gems. “I think I’ve found my perfect mask,” she says with a grin, and flutters her lashes for effect. It stirs a laugh out of Zuko, who catches the eye of the vendor.

“My Lord,” she tips her head down and Zuko spots the fraying silver strands at the crown of her head. Her face is soft and she doesn’t look too much older than he imagines his own mother might look. “It pleases me to see you doing well, and I can say I’m honored by your presence.”

For once, when Katara turns to move against his side, he finds he isn’t searching for her comfort. “I’m grateful to have been a pleasure to you, ma’am.” Zuko leans his head down in deference for the elderly, and it’s a motion that softens a smile from Katara’s mouth. “How much trouble will I be for one of your lovely masks? And perhaps a scarf as well?”

The woman laughs warmly, and shakes her head the moment that Zuko retrieves a small handful of golden coins from his pockets. “I couldn’t ask anything of the sort from you, your Highness.”

“And I couldn’t leave here with any of your merchandise without leaving a token of my support.” Zuko grasps her hand gently and spills enough coins into her palm to bring tears to the corners of her eyes. It’s this part of his responsibilities that he can handle; he is three years old, again, looking for the shiniest things and the women with the kind smiles and warm eyes.

“It does a lady well to know that her wares will be rivaled in beauty only by the lovely Master that wears them.” She bows her head again, and it takes the span of several seconds for him to divine that she is speaking to Katara. Her face is flushed and she is stuttering out a platitude of thankfulness as she gathers up the mask and another golden scarf; the material is a soft, luxurious silk that is not sheer like the scarf she’d already become fond of wearing.

Only a few minutes of Zuko’s miniature tour amongst the citizens carry on before they run into Aang, several parcels protectively clutched to his chest. His smile is a familiar one, full of shameless mischief and something Zuko can only describe with different inflections of _Aang_ , and the three of them gather together to return to their village home.

For once, the silence between the three of them feels serene. Aang leads the group of them with a breeze caught around him, as if it troubles him to put any more pressure onto the world, even if from his own feet. Katara is comfortable enough keeping pace with him, her hand occasionally dipping down into the thick wrap around her bundles to sweep across the smooth fabric.

“Are you going to teach us how to dance, Hotman?” Aang asks with an innocent thread in his voice, but the impish grin on his face is telling.

Zuko wrinkles his nose at the nickname, though it manages to get a soft laugh from Katara. “Don’t you have enough practice in dancing,” he pauses, and narrows his eyes at the young Avatar, “Twinkletoes?”

For all its worth, Aang conjures up an affronted look and holds his hand over his chest, settling himself to the ground for the full effect of his dramatics. But Zuko walks past him, waits for him to draw himself out of his reverie and catch up to the rest of them, nearly home.

It isn’t until Katara peeks over at Zuko’s near-empty cot with a frown that it all registers to him. The Festival of the Veil is less than a day away and somehow, they are all several steps closer to solving the crisis that had called them all together again. Something about it seemed bittersweet, but in that moment, he was thrown by the look on his friend’s face.

“Can I help you?” He says freshly, and Katara looks affronted for a convincing six seconds.

“You didn’t buy a mask?” Zuko lifts his shoulders towards her and angles his golden stare to the young Avatar in the corner. Aang is on his way to stretching a sea salt taffy between his fingers, but catches Zuko’s eyes when he gives Katara an answer.

“I already have one.”

…

 **ii. because we both have the fear  
** fear of being alone

…

“You need a haircut.”

Zuko blinks, and refrains from the instinct to shrug off the touch. Katara’s fingers are stuck through the tie of his hair, and she slips it out without a second thought. His hair isn’t too difficult to manage; it scrapes along his jaw and touches at a point on the back of his neck.

“Cut it, then.” He lifts his shoulders in nonchalance, hands tucked against the edge of his cot, and Katara offers a _tsk_ before she lets go of his hair.

“I want to help cut Zuko’s hair!” Aang flies into the room—Zuko might even wager that he _actually_ flew into the room with the way he skids over to the two of them. His eyes are bright and there is a dark red fabric clutched in his hands that he holds behind him once he realizes that he’s carrying it.

In the end, they all help. Aang prods and pokes at Zuko’s face: scrapes his fingers against Zuko’s hairline, separates the sections of his hair, rambles about how much younger he’ll look as Katara collects all of the ink-black strands into her fist and saws through it all with a knife carved of ice. It ends up a little bit longer than his hair had been back when they’d been nothing but a band of confused teenagers trying to help save the world, and the nostalgia of a haircut that isn’t hinged on a terror in his life seems to twist Zuko’s insides in a strangely proud way.

“I’ll meet you guys at the festival,” he says as he slips the sheath of his swords against his body. He catches both pairs of curious eyes, but the information that they seek doesn’t come so easily from their friend. “Behave yourselves.”

…

Once the sun settles into a lower cradle in the sky, the Festival of the Veil begins. The marketplace is deconstructed and each of the vending tables are replaced by stands overflowing with food and drink, adorned in web-spun silk and tea lights. The crowd of people easily exceeds the normal bustle of the marketplace during the daytime, children and adults alike roaming and mingling through the village center.

Zuko isn’t sure how easy it will be to track down his friends, at first.

After all, none of them have seen the outfits they’d planned to wear, with the exception of brief glimpses of Katara’s entire ensemble. And he isn’t exactly easy to spot out, dressed in black pants and a navy-colored tunic that blends into the rapidly approaching night air. The mask fitted across his face is a familiar one, though: bone-sharp teeth, the dark grin, a white crown, endless eyes. Zuko counts on at least Aang being able to pick him out of the crowd from the mask alone.

But what he doesn’t count on is the shouting. Amongst the bustle of the crowds, he can still pick out the very distinct yell of his friend. Zuko glances around and converges on a stand that boasts fresh fruit and sweet sake cups, eyes alert until they land on a familiar sight—a silk scarf curled in a bow against a tumbling sea of curls.

“Stop!” He sees Katara first; her face is obscured by her mask with the exception of her mouth, twisted into a trembling frown. She wears the dress he’d peeked at from her shopping trip last time; it is slimming and clings to her figure, with a wrap made of sheer violet to keep her modest. He can see her eyes through the mask and it is a wonder that she isn’t crying from the tears collected in the corners of her eyes.

“There’s nothing wrong with us just dancing—”

“No!” He fires back swiftly. Aang’s fists are curled at his sides, though. The young Avatar is adorned in a red mask that swirls with the colors of sunset.  The lofty orange robes come as a dead giveaway, but there is enough anonymity to keep Aang shielded from any recognition. The wind that curls past Zuko and passes a great shudder through the crowd is _not_ inconspicuous enough, though.

“Aang.” Zuko’s voice is soft, in a way so controlled as to belie the true emotion he feels, a crude mixture of sadness and anger. His hand finds his shoulder, applies enough pressure to remind him: _this is not what we’re here for, remember why we’re here_.

For a moment, guilt flickers across his features when he looks at Katara, but just the angled stare is enough to have her turning away and weaving herself into the crowd. Zuko wants to find her, but he knows it is Aang who is the powder keg to deal with. His shoulders rise and fall with each breath, and Zuko can see the way he steadies his breathing, regains control over his rage.

“I don’t understand,” he says, sudden exhaustion in his voice, “how she wants so much space away from me but still wants to be close.”

Zuko curls his fingers into his shoulder, a reassuring squeeze as he leads Aang towards a table with assorted kebabs. He seems to offer his contemplation to the new distraction, until he can sort out the skewers that are absent of meat.

“You never really learned how to be Katara’s friend, Aang.” He’s not quite sure he understands it, though. His relationship with Mai had been nothing but the pretense of friendship, the entire opposite of what Aang and Katara were going through. “You always loved her as your girlfriend, even before she was. So now that she isn’t…I don’t think you know _how_ you feel about her.”

Chewing around the vegetables, he seems to give a slight consideration to the idea. “I’m sorry,” is what he manages, “for dragging you into this. And I think you’re right, about the feelings thing. But let’s just…try to have fun? And get to the bottom of all of this bad stuff.” He’s starting to sound more like the whimsical teenager he’d envied—Aang, with the incredible ability to throw a cloak over all of the negative points of life.

Zuko smiles, an expression lost behind the full face of his mask. “A good idea, I think. Shouldn’t you be mingling?”

It’s a cue that doesn’t take Aang long to pick up on, because his lips form into a grin and he’s lost in the crowd again, flitting between people as if he was the embodiment of the wind. Zuko watches the sunset-clad form of his friend disappear into the throngs of people, and wonders how hard it’ll be to find Katara amongst all of these people.

 

…

 **iii. help me be a different person  
** if i’m somebody else, it never happened to me

…

The harbor contains the trickles of people already merry with the spirit of the festival, and Katara can’t help but smile at the sight of them. The festival had given her something to focus on, and maybe she’d even had the smallest hope that it would bring her a little happiness. The Fire Nation was daunting in so many ways that hurt her to put words to, but with these homely celebrations and the surmounting village pride, it reminds Katara so much of her home.

Reaching her hand out to the edge of the dock, Katara pulls ocean water into her hands, and cups her palms against her face. It is a cool touch to her aching eyes, though it washes off the touches of gold she’d lined her lashes with, and makes her face more childish and round. Her mask is at her feet, the violet reflecting back up against the setting sun. As much as she doesn’t want to, her thoughts drift away to Aang, and the sadness seems to keep a strong hold against her heart.

It’s almost enough of a distraction that she doesn’t notice the figure standing beside her, not immediately. But when she grabs her mask and clamors to her feet, she stumbles at the peripheral view of someone else, feet catching clumsily in the broken boards of the dock.

Pale hands catch her by the forearms and hold her steady. “Hey,” the air seals up in her throat until she coughs, hanging her head slightly. “You scared the wits out of me.” Katara isn’t sure that she’s a fan of Zuko’s mask; there is something warming about the deep blue, but the nightmarish hellion depicted in its likeness haunts her in a way reminiscent of her childhood. Looking into the eyeholes of the mask dredges up fears long since forgotten about in favor of reality, and Katara shakes her head to dispel of its garish charm.

When she pulls herself upright, the lingering touch against her arm feels heated. “I’m sorry about before,” she twists her mask between her hands, finds the ribbons to tie it back in place, “with Aang. Let’s just head back, okay?” Katara doesn’t have much else to offer in the way of apologies without spilling her heart out, and the danger that lies therein is her inability to put all of the pieces back where they belong.

This feels much like the marketplace, walking with Zuko. Her arm is tucked into the crook of his elbow, warm and muscled. This feels much like home, with her mother brushing her hair for an hour before she fell asleep. Silence and peace and happiness. Katara can’t find any words for the feeling far too intense to be _comfort_ , but somewhere in its radius. There is plenty unspoken between the two of them, but she thinks she likes this most. This silence.

“Dance with me, beautiful!”

Katara is offered, and before she can protest, she is pulled into the mass of people. Daring to peek up at her assailant, she’s met with someone wearing a red dragon mask with straw hair jutting from the top. She loses Zuko in the sea of people, the mask lost in the waves. So, she dances because it’s easier to let go than to hold on, than to keep hurting herself. And it feels nice, she can’t deny, to hear those words from someone who doesn’t know her. A superficial comment to remind her that she isn’t some grand-mastered scheme from the universe, a fated lover, a penance for karma—she is simply a pretty girl.

After a while, Katara finds that she’s dancing alone and to the beat of music asynchronous to her surroundings. Sweat streaks along the edge of her curls, her skin pulsing with warmth. She can feel the moon before she spots it in the backdrop of the sky, an unbitten disc rising up. Briefly, she thinks of the children’s book with the village and the Painted Lady mantle she’d once assumed on her own. How the people crowded around with masks to try to protect themselves, when nothing but divine intervention could’ve helped them.

“Katara,” she’s more surprised by the shock in Zuko’s voice than the way he takes her hand, pulls her close to dance. There’s the warmth, again, soaking into her skin through her palms. “Why’re you so hard to find? Do you want to—” He closes his mouth around the word _talk_ but she knows it’s there, skips delicately over its placement. Dancing with him takes up too much of her internal thought process, so she shakes her head dumbly.

“You should’ve danced with me before, after the docks,” she says, before she’d been pried away. “Besides, I already said sorry, about Aang. Let’s just have a little fun, keep our eyes peeled.” She leans in close and whispers the last statement, trying to find his eyes through the darkened holes of the demon mask. It’s unnerving without Zuko’s voice echoing against the wood.

Underneath, his eyes shine like little gems, like the ones on her mask. His mouth hangs open for a moment, then she can almost _hear_ the confused rattle of his brain until he can find the words he wants. “Okay,” he settles, and Katara is happy enough to just dance with him, “okay, okay. I’m going to grab us some drinks and we can go scout.”

Zuko’s hand touches the spaces between her fingers gently, then releases his hold. Katara lets the flame seep out slowly, turns away simply to keep to herself. She’d learned so much about the town in the visits to the marketplace that could help them with their dilemma. Other than the lore of the Painted Lady, she learns that this town was popular for many other reasons. The village of Hira’a was home to a famous troupe of actors who had gone on worldwide tours following the new reign of Fire Lord Zuko. Outside of the village was a forest rumored to be a spiritual haven for the lost.

The information that had piqued her interest the most had come from the vendor that’d sold her the scarf. A middle-aged woman, who smiled that day as Zuko had retreated, and said softly how much he looked like _her_.

Hira’a, it seemed, was where Zuko’s mother was from, before she had become a princess.

Katara tries to picture what his mother looked like; in the end, she imagines a Zuko cleansed of scar tissue, the warmth of her own mother’s smile, the lingering touch of the love she felt between uncle and nephew. Somehow, from all of the memories and stories and fabrications, she came up with the idea of his mother and her relative innocence to the war. She wondered if she was out there. Maybe she was celebrating the Festival of the Veil under cover of mask and merry.

It is easy to think of these things without knowing what comes next. Katara finds the simplicity in indulging her imagination as an escape from reality, and up until this moment, it serves her just fine.

…

 **iv. you don’t mess with love  
** you mess with the truth

…

 

A cup bumps into her knuckles before long, and Katara smiles as she accepts the offering. She can’t see the line of his mouth, but Katara feels like he is smiling at her beneath the mask. Her nose tips towards the edge of the cup, wafts the scent of something fruity and strong swirling within.

“This might not be a great idea,” but she’s drinking it anyway, walking with him anyway. He laughs, and it sounds like a foreign thing; a deep rumble in the center of his chest that causes her to shudder with its timbre. This time, it is his hand on her waist, leading her along a worn path parallel to the docks.

Halfway through the cup, Katara feels the bite of alcohol on her tongue and wonders just how strong these drinks are. “How is anyone supposed to fend off malevolent spirits with this much—” she squints into the cup, and then tips her head towards Zuko, “—what is this?”

Katara’s eyes glaze over at the spread of heat in her cheeks. It isn’t until her vision blurs for a moment that she realizes it’s his hand, creeping along the side of her face. His other hand has untied the knot at the back of her head, and he brushes his fingertips over the rise of her cheeks. She looks for his eyes underneath the mask, the glittering gems in the sea of blue, but she can’t quite bring them into focus.

Stunned, she doesn’t move. Katara doesn’t breathe, doesn’t say a single word. His hand rests with his thumb on the underside of her jaw, and maybe she feels warm from the alcohol, or the weather, or the closeness. Maybe she likes the way Zuko touches her face and she feels like she’s just met him tonight for the first time. Maybe she’s tipsy and likes to not hurt as much.

“You remind me so much of her, just as beautiful,” her eyes cross for a moment because _that_ is not her friend’s voice, but suddenly he is so close she can feel the heat of his body. His fingers lock against her collarbone, and he pushes the mask away from his mouth. Katara is dizzy from alcohol, or else she would react much faster to the smoothness of the skin visible; no touches of rumpled skin and fire-branded cheekbones. And that voice, the way the words almost feel like damnation.

His mouth fits against hers and surges with a dangerous mixture of fire and electricity. Katara finds herself entranced in a perilous situation, because the alcohol blots out all of the reasoning, only raises a mild panic at the fact that she doesn’t know who she’s kissing. His hand presses into her collarbone with a force that feels destructive, but the ache is low and dull. Her mouth shapes around a scream, and Katara twists away long enough to see the clear grey eyes staring at her.

“Who are you?” She asks, unable to stop the tremble in her voice.

His thumb presses into the muscle at her neck. “When you see her, tell her I loved her.” Before Katara can do anything else, he wrenches her to the side. She feels the weight of her legs buckling, loses her balance, and plummets into the water. It stings against her skin when she breaks the surface and she swallows mouthfuls of ocean water from the impact.

Her entire body fights all at once, a collaborative effort. Her soul commands _waterbend_ so she pulls the water around her, but there is so much of it and her brain begs her to _breathe_ but each lung is terrified of the saltwater waiting to be inhaled. Katara’s hands circle around her neck, where that hand is still firm in her collar. A strength she isn’t familiar with, and she digs her nails in as deep as she can, churns the water around her body into a cyclone but the ocean simply fills in the empty spaces.

The only thing she can make out through the water is the mask, staring down into the depths. Everything falls into darkness soon after that.


	5. a flash in the sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and to signify the end, there was a great flash in the sky.

…

**i. destroy in order to rebuild** **  
** a long running path full of destruction

…

Zuko is talking casually with an unmasked girl who is running a stand selling various confections, when Aang stumbles back towards him. The girl eyes him warily as she steps away and saunters behind the stand, and for a fleeting moment, Zuko wonders why she’s put such a distance between them.

Then he turns around, following the line of sight from the girl at the stand to the expression on Aang’s face.

His mask is askew, the red painted ornament twisted sideways and away from Aang’s nose and mouth. The crooked display allows Zuko to notice the tell-tale flush of his cheeks, which gives enough of an indication to him as to what is wrong with his friend. He doesn’t want to come out and say that Aang is drunk, but the more he sways with the passing wind, the harder it is for the Fire Lord to deny it.

“I saw you two dancing,” Aang says abruptly, his voice slurring. He digs his fingers into his friend’s forearm and sways, as if  _ he _ is dancing, too. “I see the way she looks at you, you know.”

Zuko threads his arm behind Aang in an attempt to steer them away from the stand and any prying eyes; his mask doesn’t seem to be doing much for anonymity anymore and he certainly doesn’t want to deal with whispers about the Avatar being at the Festival of the Veil. With one last sympathetic look towards the girl at the confectionary stand, he leads Aang away from the edge.

They don’t make it far before Aang flings his hand up to his face, pushing his mask to the top of his head, and fixing his gaze onto Zuko’s. He can see the color of his eyes clearly, but especially that they seem to be out of focus despite his intense stare. “You don’t see it, Zuko?”

He swallows the knot at the back of his throat and thanks the Spirits for the full face of his mask. The flashes of memory in his mind rise unbidden, but Zuko carefully presses them back down into his subconscious. “You’re drunk, Aang. And you’re trying to make sense of this whole Katara thing, which I get—”

“I mean, she  _ loves _ me.” Aang barrels through his thoughts as if Zuko isn’t even speaking to him. “At least she used to love me. But maybe she always loved you. You saved her life, the life her mother saved for her. I could never protect her any better than that. Maybe you love her, too.”

Zuko doesn’t know why, but the back of his neck burns from Aang’s words. He’d never even found Katara, so he’d drank both cups of wine on his own, but it wasn’t enough to explain away the sensation. Aang’s nonsensical talking shouldn’t be bothering him so much, especially with the scornful way that the Avatar talks. Maybe he doesn’t know Aang as well as he thinks, because the bitterness that seems to appear and disappear at a whim is alarming.

But it doesn’t stop Zuko from holding Aang’s words at length and studying them. Zuko’s feelings about Katara are more complex than those of his feelings towards the rest of his friends; there was something so rewarding about the way Katara treated him that made him feel like part of her friendship was the redemption he’d always longed for. Days spent at sea were all exchanged for having her in the Fire Nation, teasing him playfully.

“She does love you, Aang,” Zuko says, reminding himself, because Katara is his friend and they’ve always been  _ friends _ . He’s always been grateful for as much. “You’re just getting yourself worked up now, though. Put your mask back on,  _ please _ , and—”

“Avatar!” A young boy careens into Aang’s legs abruptly, nearly losing his balance in the process. His tiny hands are fisted in Aang’s orange robes and Zuko makes to tell him to go away, dissatisfied with the new shift in weight between them. He can’t be a day older than seven years old, holding a wooden toy in one of his hands. He seems to be dressed for the festival, though he doesn’t wear a mask. He glances over at Zuko’s mask and the fear in his eyes illuminates them immediately.

“Avatar,” he says softly, his voice trembling, “a girl is being drowned at the river by someone with  _ that _ same mask.”

It is enough to temporarily knock Aang out of his reverie. Sobriety is a façade that he can’t quite offer, but he can manage to at least offer a serious response.  “Take me there.”

Zuko’s fingers subconsciously reach up to touch the pointed teeth of his mask and imagines someone with the exact same mask at this festival. Though the mask is a remnant of his mother, Zuko can make sense of it not being the only unique one made in the likeness of the Blue Spirit. Suddenly, Zuko can hear Katara’s words echoing in his mind.  _ You should’ve danced with me before, after the docks.  _ Dread fills the pit of his stomach as he remembers holding her hand and biting down on the question.

When had he seen her at the docks?

“It’s Katara.” Zuko’s body tenses immediately, and his blood pounds in his ears. “Aang, it’s  _ Katara _ .” 

…

**ii. the life that beats in its cage** **  
** all of those you loved, you mistrust

…

If the little boy follows them to the docks, Zuko doesn’t notice. He and Aang break out into a sprint, running as fast as they can without knocking down everyone in their path. He can feel the wind that the Avatar generates and for a moment, he hopes Aang stays steady until they make it to their destinations. Alcohol no longer seems to guide his movements as they trample through the woods down the winding path towards the water. With the moon overhead, the ocean swelling underneath the boards of the dock looks bone-white, rippling like a sea of pearls.

Zuko would marvel at the sight of it if he wasn’t searching for his friend in the water. Someone is kneeling at the edge of the dock and in the time that it takes him to realize their hands are wrenched into the cold water, Aang is already charging towards them. He collides into them with a yell, knocking them to the ground with Aang’s fists crashing into the water shortly after. The Fire Lord files this vision in the back of his mind as things to boast about to Aang when he goes on his holier-than-thou rants about kindness and nonviolence.

“You let go of her,” Aang growls in a low voice. His body is completely sprawled along the assailant’s, whose matching Blue Spirit mask is now beside him on the ground. Zuko crosses the distance to look at his face briefly: clear eyes, dark hair, pale skin. His cheeks burn at the idea of Katara thinking that this was him, and following him down to the water.

The thought reminds him to sink to his knees, reaching into the water in a panic. “Where is she?” he says aloud, hands trembling. Bubbles begin to filter up from the bottom, but their presence disappears soon after and seizes Zuko’s heart in a vice. It doesn’t stop him from submerging his hands in the water, his mind ticking away whether he can swim down to her.

Aang’s knee is in the man’s hip, and his eyes burn. “You don’t know what you’ve just done.”

The water around Zuko’s hands glows for a moment. Beneath the surface, he can see her body outlined in white light, as if she is simply the moon cast into the water, and he can only watch her in awe as she rises over the cresting waves. Her dress drips with black seawater and her eyes are the source of the glow, so bright that he squints into the shape of her face just to make sure she is okay. This is Katara, but not as he remembers seeing her last, with paint streaks along her cheeks and beneath her eyes and slanting into her hair.

Something about her is very ethereal. “Katara,” he pleads without a second thought, reaching out to her and just  _ hoping _ her voice will return the sentiment.

Her gaze is focused on Aang—no, her eyes are honed in on the figure splayed along the docks. The light fades from her irises, seeping out as if it was just meant to return the luminescence to moon itself, and her mouth parts on a name: “Yori?”

Katara’s voice sounds full of the ocean, but it is something else to her assailant, to Yori. The line of his body becomes stiff, even under the pressure of Aang’s body, though his force has lessened since Katara rose from the ocean like a siren. Zuko doesn’t know whether he should reach for Katara anymore because he doesn’t know if Katara is  _ there _ anymore. 

“You,” Yori growls. He throws all of his weight into Aang to topple him over, and then jumps to his feet. The mask makes a crunch beneath his shoes as he moves to approach Katara and Zuko can only spare his friend a brief glance before he looks back between the two of them. “How dare you call my name? You no longer have that right,  _ murderer _ .”

Katara’s feet touch the dock but Zuko inches back towards Aang, extends a hand to pull him up from the ground. His friend is frozen as much in shock as he is in reverence at the sight. Something seems to be working across his brain because he rubs at the redness of his cheeks as he processes it all.

“Both of you,” Aang says with a firm voice, “both of you are spirits.”

…

**iii. lead us to the depths of our hearts** **  
** midnight shadows finding love

…

Zuko can’t take his eyes off of Katara. Except she isn’t really Katara, not in the way that he knows. She looks the same, with the tendrils of her thick hair dripping down her back, her violet dress matted down to her skin, but her  _ eyes _ are different. The color has rescinded to a familiar blue, but within is something foreign to him, that causes him to look away whenever he catches her gaze. 

Aang is standing at his side quietly. He leans on Zuko more now than he had before, his eyes wide.  “You’re angry,” Aang says to Yori, his gaze sweeping over Yori’s shaking fists.

Yori doesn’t glow the way that Katara does, but there is certainly something emanating from him, now. There isn’t a proper feeling for the vibe that it sends out except for the way it chills Zuko down to his bones and gives rise to goosebumps over his bare arms. He turns his head to appraise Aang as if it is the first time he is truly seeing him, his gaze lingering on Aang’s face. And suddenly, Yori bares his teeth towards him.

A dangerous, smirking smile, like the mask.

“Avatar,” Yori says, his voice trembling, “I was murdered here, in Hira’a, by this—this  _ woman _ . And I won’t stop taking those girls until she suffers for it.”

Katara’s body seizes at the malice in Yori’s words. Zuko wonders just how much of his friend is conscious beneath the surface, because when she takes a step forward, there is a stilt in her step that seems like resistance. The movement only makes Yori more furious, because he snaps his teeth so hard that Zuko suspects they may shatter from the impact. 

“You think  _ I _ murdered you?” The hurt in her voice carries across the space between them. If this spirit that inhabits Katara has actually killed this man, then Zuko can understand why all of the missing girls seem to look like her. 

It makes sense how Katara became the perfect target. 

“I  _ loved _ you,” his voice rises into a roar, carried away by the late night wind, “I  _ loved _ you, and you killed me on this very dock. What’s to stop me from doing the same to you, and this girl?”

Suddenly, she is in danger again. Yori crosses the space between the four of them with an unbelievable speed, until he is gripping Katara’s forearms. His hands press into her elbows and jerk her forwards, then backwards towards the water.

Zuko watches her foot slip.

“I’ll kill her,” he says with his lips twisted into a snarl. Yori’s eyes are something dark and terrifying, and the aura he gives off is enough to keep Zuko and Aang rooted in place. Something tells Zuko that Yori will be entirely unreachable if he decides to kill Katara and the spirit of the woman within her, and it makes his heart fire rapid beats against his ribcage. 

“Give me one good reason not to.”

“Yori,” Aang’s voice is low and full of fear, “I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding. Katara—she’s our friend, you don’t need to hurt her. You—”

“I  _ want _ to hurt her.” Yori’s hands tighten around her arms and Katara makes a noise, except it  _ isn’t _ her. 

Zuko thinks of Katara in flashes: the heartbroken girl he’d greeted at the docks and the one who held him close in the marketplace crowds. Katara, with soft hands in his hair, soft hands holding his and dancing, soft hands on his scar.

“Please,” he says quietly, fumbling for the right words. His throat runs dry at the thought of not knowing what to say when Aang’s words come unbidden to the back of his mind.  _ You saved her life, the life her mother saved for her. I could never protect her any better than that. _ “Her life is too valuable to lose.  _ She _ is too valuable to lose.”

The words are heavy in the air because everyone falls silent. Katara stands stunned, her gaze searching for his, but the terror that he might actually find his friend’s familiar gaze causes his cheeks to burn. Yori’s face is unreadable, a great threat to all of them on the dock because he is the malevolent one that holds their fates in his hands.

His grip falters for a moment and it is all it takes before Katara throws herself into his chest, curling her arms around his waist. “I love you,” she says insistently, “I could have never killed you! My mother killed you, Yori! I—all I wanted was to  _ be _ with you. All I wanted was to tell you my name.”

Aang steps closer to the pair of them but keeps a safe distance, his cheeks still pinked under the influence of alcohol. The severity of the situation only lends a gentle sobriety to everything, and Zuko imagines that this is still very much  a sensory overload for the Avatar.

“Hanako,” Aang says softly, and all eyes fall onto him. “Your name is Hanako, isn’t it? Like the name of the Painted Lady, from the legends.” He seems to see it closer, now; the paint that is only slightly washed away from the ocean that bleeds into the bronze of Katara’s cheeks.

The name seems to soften Yori, whose gaze has settled onto Katara, though it is  _ Hanako _ who looks back at him.

“He’s right.” Her hand presses into his cheek carefully, her stare focused intently on his expression. “My name is Hanako, daughter of a painter. And I—I fell in love with a wood carver’s son.”

The legend unfolds before them with their friend as a helpless conduit. Yori’s arms encircle her waist and before either of them can process the scene before them, he leans their faces together and kisses her softly. Zuko doesn’t have the time to react in full, however; the moment Yori touches her lips with his own, Katara’s body falls against the docks like water. The afterimage it leaves is for only a second—Hanako held safely in Yori’s embrace, before the vision of them breaks apart in the fog over the water.

Aang is the first at her side, kneeling by her shoulders and flipping her onto her back to examine her carefully. Zuko doesn’t move any closer because the moment still feels too raw, so he watches his friends and tries to shake the haunted sensation he feels. 

“She’s breathing,” Aang says in a whisper, gripping her and lifting her from the ground. His hold is soft, keeping her close to his chest before he turns to walk off of the docks. Zuko stays a few steps behind the two of them, maybe because he feels the fragility of the moment, maybe because he recognizes the hurt Aang is dealing with, maybe because he recognizes the hurt  _ he _ is dealing with, too.

Still, he follows Aang throughout the fog, wordlessly.

…

**iv. let the sun come up** **  
** if you want to touch the sky

…

When Katara sits up, her head immediately spins. There are still traces of spirit-fire in her blood, parts of her memories that don’t seem to be her own. She presses her hands over her eyes and whispers affirmations softly to herself, rocking back and forth.

Someone’s hand touches her shoulder and it takes all of her self-restraint not to scream. “You’re awake,” comes Aang’s voice. Katara pulls her hands down and blinks furiously, black spots dancing around the dimly lit profile of her friend. He is kneeling at her bedside, eyes wide and focused on her. Something in the bottom of her stomach roils, and she can feel the thick, hot tears sliding their way into her eyes.

Aang doesn’t give her a chance to let them fall before he tugs her on a slant, wrapping his arms around her. Katara feels his palm pressed at the back of her skull and the encompassed warmth he gives her is enough to trigger the waterfall of her tears. Her shoulders shake in his grip, and Katara presses her nose down into his collarbone.

“You’re safe,” he mumbles into the side of her hair, fingers combing through her curls slowly, “and you’re going to be okay.”

Katara doesn’t know how long she cries but Aang holds her for every second, his palms circling her spine and filtering through her hair, whispering comfort whenever she takes a moment to inhale. She reminds herself that her soul isn’t suppressed now, that she is free and the terror is over, but it’s hard to keep in mind without Aang’s constant pressure against her bones.

“It was the only way I could’ve lived—Hanako taking over my body. But it’s painful trying to hold all of the emotions and memories of a spirit…” Her voice is hoarse, but she keeps talking because somehow Aang has coaxed her onto the floor of their room and is still holding onto her, still comforting her. “He was restless for so long because he thought that  _ she _ killed him. And he hated her so much…”

She can only imagine how the two of them might look. Her legs are curled towards her chest but her body is nestled in Aang’s lap, arms still wrapped around his neck. Katara can feel her curls sticking to the tracks of tears on her face, and the only thing that seems to keep her calm is Aang’s steady breathing. It feels surreal, to have him so close after everything they’ve gone through.

One of them moves away first, but she can’t tell who. She can see the reflection of her face in his eyes when he glances her way, though, and she doesn’t like the red rim that swells beneath her lids. “Aang…”

“Hey,” he interrupts, his hands clasped over hers immediately, “listen, Katara. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore…but I do know that I care about you. Thinking that you could have died thinking that I—that I didn’t—it scared me more than anything else. So, I’m sorry for being so terrible to you lately.”

His apology leaves some things to be desired, but Katara’s heart is already so overwhelmed that she is willing to toss her pride to the wayside for the moment and accept it. She tilts her head back down against his shoulder and wrestles her hand free to wrap around his waist, a gentle portion of a hug. 

“I’m safe,” she says quietly, “and I’m going to be okay. So…we’re going to be okay, too.” It was only a few days ago that he hadn’t even been able to look at her with anything other than vitriol, yet here they were, curled together on the floor in each other’s arms. Katara could laugh at the irony if she wasn’t still heavy with tears.

She is content to sit in silence with him for a little longer. The aches roll through her body, waves overtaking her bones in intermittent flashes, but she can keep her mind off of the dull pain without too much trouble. 

Aang speaks up, after what feels like hours pass between them. “He saved you again, you know.” Katara can feel the question rise in the lines of her face, quirking her brows and twisting her lips. “Zuko did. If he hadn’t said what he said, I don’t think Yori would’ve stopped.”

Katara doesn’t want to think too closely about it but she can’t shake the chills that overcome her at the thought. In the heat of everything, his words were easy to lose. After all, being subconsciously detained by a spirit, things only appeared to be a whirlwind. But there had been a fraction of a second where the shock was so sudden that she’d slipped out a reaction. Zuko’s words hadn’t been a grand declaration of love, but the weight of his implications were enough for her. 

_ She is too valuable to lose _ . “I don’t know why he said that, of all things.” Katara leans to the side, shooting a tentative look towards Aang. Their newfound closeness is still something she needs to adjust to, but she finds herself comforted by it nonetheless. “Sometimes I don’t understand him…”

Aang’s eyes are out of focus for several long moments and Katara watches the way his emotions play through them, like ripples of light through the storm clouds. Zuko being asleep only feet away from them makes it all the stranger to talk about him, and she can’t help but let her gaze drift over towards his sleeping form. Exhaustion must visit each one of them, especially after the night they’ve had.

“He cares about you a lot,” he drifts off slowly, “and I think that the greatest way he knows how to show that is by protecting your life. After all, it is one of the few things your mother left to you. He must know that better than anyone else.” The realization sinks slowly into Katara’s mind with ease. Zuko had been one of the few people to attempt validating her feelings towards her mother’s death and all of the people she’d held responsible for it. He had his own tragedy, his own losses, and yet he’d made such a great concession for her—both then and now.

Katara doesn’t say anything else; she simply burrows her cheek into Aang’s shoulder and lets Zuko’s words sink in.

…

“It’s hot.” 

A whisper he barely hears.

Someone laughs and through the clouds in his mind, Zuko thinks it is Aang. He hasn’t heard his friend’s carefree laugh in what seems like years, so the sound touches his chest like a ray of light. He blinks slowly until the room around him comes into focus, and he pushes the gentle throbbing sensation at his temples to the back of his thoughts. A hangover at such a crucial time is the least of his worries as he rolls out of his sheets and stumbles to his feet.

Right through the open door, he can see Aang and Katara sitting side by side. Zuko doesn’t know what it makes him feel, but relief is amongst the tumble of emotions that fall over him at the sight. Katara’s hair is tied into a knot and he now knows her to be the chatty one of the two when she sways towards Aang listlessly, bumping their shoulders together.

“How can you stand it?” she says, and he can see her fingers tighten at the edge of her knees.

“I don’t remember meditation to be so heavy in talking,” Zuko says, his voice cobwebbed with sleep and sweet alcohol. “You need a refresher, Katara?”

Zuko doesn’t miss the twinkle in his eyes when Aang peeks over his shoulder to glance at him. Whatever happened on the walk home from the docks after the festival had clearly sewn up the rupture that had existed so plainly between his two friends. When Aang stands, his hand reaches for Katara’s without a second thought.

“We tried to ask you too, but—”

“You’re downright hellish when tired  _ and _ hungover.” Katara’s grin is contagious, but her glances is fixed on his face in a way that tells him everything he needs to know. The talk that took place between Aang and Katara seemed to put things back in their rightful place, with enough space between the two of them to be clear, but the same shadow of affection from the young Avatar that he’d enjoyed himself. 

Zuko runs his fingers through his hair and nearly forgets that he’d gotten it cut the day before. “Can we talk?” 

Aang’s hand is still clasping Katara’s, but he reaches for Zuko’s hand with his free hand. His palm fits snugly into his, slightly smaller, with thin fingers cool to the touch. He can’t help the blush that bleeds across the bridge of his nose but it bursts into scarlet when Aang presses his friends’ hands together, and steps away.

“I love you,” Aang says warmly, and Zuko can feel his heart through his words, infused into his and Katara’s hands. “Both of you.”

He watches Aang disappear, gliding over the ground until he sets foot within their lodgings. The idea that the three of them have reached a resolution with both their private issues and public crisis seems to be like a heavy stone being lifted from his chest and the feeling makes Zuko bold.

Katara fidgets at his side, but he gives her hand a careful squeeze before he lets go. She doesn’t, though.

“I was terrified, you know.” She doesn’t meet his gaze, but Zuko can’t look away from her. In the sunlight, dressed in plain white sarashi, her face still flickers and flashes with paint streaks. He doesn’t think he can ever forget pulling her out of the water with a glow clinging to every inch of her skin. He can’t ever erase the panic of praying she was still alive.

He sighs, and resolves himself to holding her hand again, since she won’t let go of his. “I was too. I thought I…”  _ …was going to lose you.  _ Zuko doesn’t say it, but the way she finally meets his stare tells him that she knows, she knows.

“Aang and I, we had a talk. I think with everything that happened yesterday, he just—I think it helped to put things in perspective for him. So, I am fairly grateful for that. He told me that he talked to you, and I heard what you said…when I was drowning…”

The tips of his ears burn at the thought. His words hadn’t been a grand confession, but there was something vulnerable enough in his plea to even give a spirit cause to stop. “Katara, I—”

“You saved me before.” 

And he can’t stop her, because her hand crumples against his chest, right against the mottled scar tissue there, 

“But I never understood why until Aang said it to me. I never understood why you risked your life to save mine because I didn’t get that it was the only thing she left me, the one thing she felt was most important above everything else…”

Katara’s hand moves along the line of his heart, following his pulse until her palm rests against his cheek. Zuko wants to melt into the ground at his feet, picturing the solemn look on his friend’s face as he spoke to Katara, still pressing the theory of romance between the two of them.

But now, with her hand against his scarred cheek and her eyes full of tears, full of gratitude, suddenly it doesn’t seem like a theory anymore. Something in his blood screams at him to kiss her and his brain is electrified in agreement, but he doesn’t move. Zuko simply looks through the tears in her eyes and makes a decision.

“Maybe he was right,” he says plainly, and if he leans into her hand, she doesn’t react to it. “Maybe I do love you, too.”

Katara smiles, and a tear slips from her cheek from the shift in her expression. “I never said I loved you, your Highness.”

“You never had to.” This time, when Zuko’s nerves stand on end with impulse, he listens to them. He leans down towards her at the very same moment that Katara presses onto her tiptoes, and her mouth is parted as soon as his mouth melds against hers. 

It isn’t some grand kiss the way he expects it to be. But Zuko would only be lying to himself if he said it didn’t make him feel whole and new, like he was cleansed and starting over from this point with Katara’s hand folded carefully into his own. He’s still not sure how, but all of the tangled feelings he’d ever felt for her are suddenly unraveled between them, with the memories of lightning flashing in the sky, straight into his chest.

There is no more  _ maybe _ .

He  _ certainly _ loves her.

…

**v. there’s something deep in the air** **  
** silver sunsets glowing red

…

Zuko doesn’t anticipate anything being different between the three of them, but seeing Aang pack his belongings onto Appa causes an uncomfortable lurch in his chest. “Sometimes I wish we were normal,” he says, leaning against the shady tree he’d taken refuge under while watching Aang flit across the vast space adjacent to the docks. “I’m not ready to go back to the reality of things yet.”

Aang’s movements are light and full of air, from the way he glides with each step to the way his belongings seem to float for a fraction of a second while he is packing them all away. Despite that, the young Avatar is smiling, and Zuko can’t find it within him to be distraught when things seem to be working out for the group of them. Appa is content too, making quiet noises each time Aang touches his fur.

“You and me both, buddy.” Aang jabs his elbow in Zuko’s direction, but he manages to sidestep the gesture with a narrow glare towards him. “You’re lucky, though. You’ll get to steal Katara away for a little longer, so I think you’ll have better luck than I will.”

He curses under his breath as he feels the heat press into his skin at Aang’s words. Everything is still so delicate, and though Katara has her students waiting for her, there seems to be a part of her that was waiting for something else. Aang stops for a moment and Zuko notices his belongings are all neatly tucked together and that this is the part where they bid each other farewell, except something bitter rests in the back of his mouth.

Aang reaches an arm out towards his friend, grinning wildly. “We’ll see each other soon,” he says warmly, as if he can feel the longing that stirs in Zuko’s chest. “Don’t miss me too much.” His arm clasps him around the shoulders and Zuko is hugging him tightly, his palm sturdy against his friend’s back. There’s always been some deep part of their friendship that Zuko holds close to his heart; Aang had a special way of always making him feel like he’d never completely lost his way.

It was nice to feel that again, even if only for a short amount of time. 

The moment breaks apart slowly, with Aang pulling away a split second before Katara joins the two of them. She doesn’t hesitate to step into the new space between them, an arm around each one of them protectively. Zuko wants to marvel in the peace they’re sharing with one another, but drawing more attention to it only takes away from the entire point.

“I’m going to miss you,” Katara whispers with an edge of sadness, but her voice soothes the stress that he feels away. “Don’t stay away for too long, okay? Everyone will be along soon, and they’ll miss you.” 

The smile that Aang answers her with is almost worth the goodbye he offers, his eyes narrowed with happiness.

“I promise that I won’t, but I do have to get going soon.” Though he doesn’t want to, he moves away from them. “And so do the two of you. Keep in touch, all right?” 

Zuko watches Aang climb into Appa’s saddle with an emotion he can’t quite describe. It isn’t until Katara finds her way to his side and slips her hand around his waist that he thinks he may be feeling satisfied. Her forehead touches the edge of his shoulder and he is careful to return the touch with his own grip around her shoulders. Aang gathers the reins in his hands and offers them one last wave before Appa takes off.

Their things are already stowed onto the same ship they’d taken to arrive in Hira’a, but for some reason, neither of them move towards the docks. Part of Zuko wonders if Katara feels fearful at the idea of returning to the docks so soon after everything that had taken place with the spirits in this town, but the resolution of it all is something that should bring them comfort.

Katara sighs into his sleeve, and she is the first to start walking towards the ship. He follows suit only when she moves, keeping pace at her side and careful to keep hold around her shoulders. His grip is more for support than for pleasure, but even Zuko can’t deny the way it seems to make his heart jump in his chest to have her be so close to him. The wood seems sturdy underneath their feet as they turn towards the ship, where Zuko slips Katara in front of him and braces his hands on her shoulders.

Her eyes are wide when she looks over her shoulder and meets his gaze. A shy smile blooms on her lips and she turns away from him, focusing on boarding the ship. Zuko doesn’t quite know how he will deal with the overwhelming feelings towards the rest of their friends arriving into the Fire Nation capital, a welcome distraction away from the time spent in Hira’a. Part of him is impatient to return to his uncle and retell the stories of their time here, of the spirits and masks and festivals, though Zuko already knows that the developments involving himself and Katara will be the most interesting to Iroh.

Looking back out over the docks as the ocean curls underneath the wooden poles, Zuko can’t help but reflect on everything, if even for a moment. Perhaps there had been some larger purpose to their visit here, all things considered. It had healed the wounds between Aang and Katara, between Yori and Hanako. It had been the success that Zuko had desperately needed it to be, all from a little divine intervention. And with Katara at his side for the time being, it seems a little too good to be true. Still, the sight of the dock catches his eye for a moment longer, before the ship pulls away from the port.

On the dock, he sees the wide brim of a hat with a veil sewed around it. On the dock, he sees an extravagantly detailed wooden boat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can't believe i've finished this. thank you all for taking this journey with me, it was well worth it.


End file.
